The purpose of this blog is to write about the politics of Congress in the age of Obama, following bills through Congressional action, explaining why things are and are not getting done, analyzing Congressional votes and handicapping political races and such. I bring to this blog a creepy knowledge of parliamentary procedure.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Daily Strike-2/22/09-Governors

Happy Sunday and welcome to the Daily Strike. Not much political news today, and I'm sure you're all watching the Oscars, so it will be a short entry tonight.

GOVERNORS: The Sunday talk shows featured a variety of GOP governors speaking about the stimulus. Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who recently announced that he would reject stimulus money for unemployment insurance, defended his decision by arguing that it will cause future tax increases. Another southern conservative, Haley Barbour of Mississippi announced that he too would reject stimulus money. I'm sure Mr. Barbour is not on the unemployment roles.

Two other pragmatic governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and Charlie Crist of Florida both talked today about how they have been forced to abandon their principles because they need stimulus money to get their states out of severe budget downfalls. Schwarzenegger even went as far as saying that Obama needs governors to be "team players." It seems like the battle lines have been drawn for 2012 already. Support the stimulus, and you are a principled fiscal conservative. Oppose it, and you are a Democrat-lite. I can't wait watching reasonable pragmatists like Crist being torn down by Governors Sanford of South Carolina and Jindal of Louisiana for accepting money to help laid-off, struggling constituents. I think the Republican primary electorate will largely be opposed to the stimulus (assuming nothing changes between now and two years from now), and thus the reasonable pragmatists will have little chance of winning the nomination. Probably good news for Obama.

STIMULUS WATCHDOG: President Obama announced a task force to oversee stimulus spending, which will be led by Earl Devaney, a former white-collar crime investigator. This week, Obama seems to be showcasing fiscal responsibility, which makes sense to appease fearful voters who are worried about huge budget deficits after the bank bailout and stimulus package. The fiscal responsibility theme should be prevalent in the address to Congress Tuesday night, as well as Thursday when Obama releases his budget.

That's it for tonight, a LOT more coming tomorrow morning in the Weekly Strike, when we preview a very busy week in politics. Enjoy the Oscars.